What You Can Do - ACTION ALERTS

PUT OIL FIRM CHIEFS ON TRIAL, SAYS LEADING CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENTIST
Testimony to US Congress will also criticize lobbyists. "Revolutionary" policies needed to tackle crisis.
Monday 23 June 2008
by Ed Pilkington, The Guardian UK

New York - James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

Hansen will use the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech to the US Congress - in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming - to argue that radical steps need to be taken immediately if the "perfect storm" of irreversible climate change is not to become inevitable.

Speaking before Congress again, he will accuse the chief executive officers of companies such as ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading.

In an interview with the Guardian he said: "When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one of the primary players who have been putting out misinformation, even via organisations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that's a crime."

He is also considering personally targeting members of Congress who have a poor track record on climate change in the coming November elections. He will campaign to have several of them unseated. Hansen's speech to Congress on June 23 1988 is seen as a seminal moment in bringing the threat of global warming to the public's attention. At a time when most scientists were still hesitant to speak out, he said the evidence of the greenhouse gas effect was 99% certain, adding "it is time to stop waffling".

He will tell the House select committee on energy independence and global warming this afternoon that he is now 99% certain that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has already risen beyond the safe level.

The current concentration is 385 parts per million and is rising by 2 ppm a year. Hansen, who heads Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, says 2009 will be a crucial year, with a new US president and talks on how to follow up on the Kyoto agreement.

He wants to see a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants, coupled with the creation of a huge grid of low-loss electric power lines buried under ground and spread across America, in order to give wind and solar power a chance of competing. "The new US president would have to take the initiative analogous to Kennedy's decision to go to the moon."

His sharpest words are reserved for the special interests he blames for public confusion about the nature of the global warming threat. "The problem is not political will, it's the alligator shoes - the lobbyists. It's the fact that money talks in Washington, and that democracy is not working the way it's intended to work."

A group seeking to increase pressure on international leaders is launching a campaign today called 350.org. It is taking out full-page adverts in papers such as the New York Times and the Swedish Falukuriren calling for the target level of CO2 to be lowered to 350 ppm. The advert has been backed by 150 signatories, including Hansen.

"Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?" A Scientific Report published 31 March 2008. By James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Pushker Kharecha, David Beerling, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Mark Pagani, Maureen Raymo, Dana Royer, James C. Zachos.

. . . Human activities are altering Earth's atmospheric composition. Concern about global warming due to long-lived human-made greenhouse gases (GHGs) led to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change with the objective of stabilizing GHGs in the atmosphere at a level preventing "dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system." The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and others used several "reasons for concern" to estimate that global warming of more than 2-3°C may be dangerous.

The European Union adopted 2°C above pre-industrial global temperature as a goal to limit human-made warming. Hansen et al. argued for a limit of 1°C global warming (relative to 2000, 1.7°C relative to pre-industrial time), aiming to avoid practically irreversible ice sheet and species loss. This 1°C limit, with nominal climate sensitivity of 3/4°C per W/m 2 and plausible control of other GHGs, implies maximum CO2 ~ 450 ppm.

Our current analysis suggests that humanity must aim for an even lower level of GHGs. Paleoclimate data and ongoing global changes indicate that ‘slow' climate feedback processes not included in most climate models, such as ice sheet disintegration, vegetation migration, and GHG release from soils, tundra or ocean sediments, may begin to come into play on time scales as short as centuries or less. Rapid on-going climate changes and realization that Earth is out of energy balance, implying that more warming is ‘in the pipeline', add urgency to investigation of the dangerous level of GHGs.

A probabilistic analysis concluded that the long-term CO2 limit is in the range 300-500 ppm for 25 percent risk tolerance, depending on climate sensitivity and non-CO2 forcings. Stabilizing atmospheric CO2 and climate requires that net CO2 emissions approach zero, because of the long lifetime of CO2.

We use paleoclimate data to show that long-term climate has high sensitivity to climate forcings and that the present global mean CO2, 385 ppm, is already in the dangerous zone. Despite rapid current CO2 growth, ~2 ppm/year, we show that it is conceivable to lower CO2 this century to less than the current amount, but only via prompt policy changes. . . . (p. 1)

Present policies, with continued construction of coal-fired power plants without CO2 capture, suggest that decision-makers do not appreciate the gravity of the situation. We must begin to move now toward the era beyond fossil fuels. Continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions, for just another decade, practically eliminates the possibility of near-term return of atmospheric composition beneath the tipping level for catastrophic effects.

The most difficult task, phase-out over the next 20-25 years of coal use that does not capture CO2, is herculean, yet feasible when compared with the efforts that went into World War II. The stakes, for all life on the planet, surpass those of any previous crisis. The greatest danger is continued ignorance and denial, which could make tragic consequences unavoidable. (p. 12)

(The full report--35 pages--is available as a download from a wide variety of sources. Go to www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TargetCO2_20080407.pdf, or simply do a search on the title of the report. It's ALL OVER THE WEB.)

NATIONAL LEGISLATION ON GLOBAL WARMING
There are two crucially important bills in Congress that would help to stop global warming—or at least'slow it down and limit the damage to the earth and all its creatures, including human beings.

Both bills, the'sanders-Boxer Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act in the'senate (S. 309) and the Waxman safe Climate Act in the House (HR. 1590), would pledge 80% reduction of emissions by 2050 and promote energy efficiency through use of clean, renewable energy sources. Both bills are stronger than the Lieberman-Warner Climate'security Act (S. 280) and its House version (HR. 620), which include massive giveaways to energy-guzzling corporations. At this time, it seems likely that the Lieberman-Warner bill will be acted on, and the stronger bills will not be.

To send a message to your'senators about how the Lieberman-Warner bill should be'strengthened, go to the Union of Concerned'scientists Action web site, http://ucsACTION.org/campaign/10_31_07_Americas_Climate_Security_Act/iiun8wd2v7n837ix?
You can'send a message to your Congresspersons regarding these bills at www.saveourenvironment.org, and you can send a message about global warming to the Presidential candidates for 2008 at www.democracyforamerica.com/stopglobalwarming.

On August 4, 2007, the House passed H.R.3221, the "New Direction for Energy Independence, National'security, and Consumer Protection Act," by a vote of 241-172. The legislation incorporates various legislative initiatives for energy independence and reducing global warming, including the Carbon-Neutral Government Act of 2007 (H.R. 2635).

The U.S. federal government is the largest energy consumer in the United'states and probably the world.

A carbon-neutral government is a symbol that the United'states will set the standard for environmental responsibility. The Carbon-Neutral Government Act, originally introduced in June by Congressman Henry Waxman, aims to freeze and dramatically reduce the federal government's greenhouse gas emissions until the government is carbon-neutral in 2050. It also includes'specific requirements for agency ACTIONs to help the government meet these goals.

Of his Carbon Neutral Government bill, Congressman Waxman'says, "the federal government is no longer going to be doping the least . . . it will become the world leader."

Representatives Fred Upton and Joseph Knollenberg were the only Michigan Republicans voting in favor of the bill, joining all six Michigan Democratic Representatives.

The bill is now in the Senate for consideration.

For information about Greenpeace USA's Project Hotseat, a campaign to get Fred Upton, Republican Representative for Michigan 6th District, to become a leader in limiting global warming, go to
http:// members.greenpeace.org/hotseat/Michigan/District6/article/16